Hello, I've read through this entire thread and sent Yeson an enquiry to see when I can get an appointment. While I wait, I was wondering if lovelyjmi or any of the other girls who have been through this could tell me, if you are (majorly) stealth before the surgery, and then you have it, are you likely to be outed by the healing period in the first 6 months?
Here's my situation: I've been stealth for about 5 years (why I don't have a profile pic), and in that time have moved, gone into a whole new line of work unrelated to the transition job, and met a partner who I told after we'd been together for a while, but who's family have no idea. I've known them over 3 years.
My male voice fundamental frequency is 104Hz. I was a super-bass in choir. My female voice fundamental frequency in normal conversation is 196Hz. I did a LOT of work to have the voice I have.
It's perfectly fine - low and raspy for a female but passable on the phone, and I can hold it in nervous situations, but my reason for this surgery is that I am capable of putting out noises of down to 75Hz when I sob heavily in a super resonant loud echoey way, and I cannot sing or yell because I just do not have the range in an alto register and when I yell I cannot keep resonance out of my voice. I also have to really suppress my laugh to not make a bellowing sound, and the MOST frustrating thing is that when girls around me start getting excited together their pitch goes up and up while I am stuck down around this super calm and steady range of vocalization which makes me seem like a zen never-flustered sort of woman when I am anything but. It REALLY gets in the way of bonding with women.
I believe my vocal chords are probably damaged - another reason I want this surgery - from when my voice dropped at 16. Suddenly I couldn't sing Time After Time with Cindy Lauper at the same pitch she could and I really really tried and pushed my voice up for years before I admitted defeat. I think it's damaged because I definitely have vocal tremor - I am totally unable to hold a note without vibrato, which I cannot control the level of - and I have no ability to quickly move between pitches to do melismas despite years of trying.
My vocal range is 75Hz to 622Hz when I use maximum volume - that's Eb2 to Eb5 - which sounds great on paper, but in reality I sound *ridiculous* in falsetto because it sounds so unnatural and strained: my break is around Eb4-G4, and I can't really enunciate words at anything above Bb4 in falsetto and have to really blow wind hard through my chords to get above that. I don't have a voice that can practically sing a scale in alto at all, and I can really only sound female for about 3 or 4 notes around C4 without extreme strain or resonance or lowness of pitch or ridiculous hollowness in the falsetto outing me. I can't even sing Happy Birthday To You without giving myself away as trans.
So I want the surgery for all these reasons. My question is: will I be stuck down around 104Hz for 3-6 months after the surgery, effectively outing me to anyone who hears me, and worst of all, exposing my partner to my low low voice in that range (which she has never heard and which I don't want her to hear for fear she will lose attraction to me - she's a pretty hardcore lesbian in terms of who she is attracted to).
I can work around it by being totally silent until my ability to speak at 196Hz is back, but I don't know if my partner could stand me not talking for that long as I am the outgoing one who talks the most between us, and she finds that comforting.
I'm also a little worried about losing the raspiness (like Demi Moore/Scarlet Johannsen) altogether as she finds that attractive, but I'll deal with that if it happens. I just really don't want to go through the rest of my life never sounding excited again.
